The Fact Checkers Are Lying Again: Gasoline Demand is Still Down

Here's gasoline demand. It is lower than it was in 2019. Everyone expected a surge, a boom reopening because of stimulus. Gasoline demand should be higher than normal. Reality check: gasoline demand is below 2019 levels.

Stimulus does create artificial demand. Stimulus is also keeping truckers at home, delaying fuel shipments. Loockdowns disrupted supply chains. Democrat energy policy, including Biden killing the Keystone pipeline on day one, increases speculation that future oil prices will be higher.

On the side of the above story was this more objective news about rising car prices:

Link to story: Cars Are About to Get a Lot More Expensive

The price of everything that goes into a vehicle is going up. Raw materials — from the steel used for bodies, gear parts and frames to the plastic that winds up in bumpers and doors trims — account for a big portion of manufacturing costs. These are only growing. Add to that labor, logistics, the pressure to invest in new technologies and creeping inflation, and carmakers are seeing a very different landscape from the relatively profit-friendly market they have enjoyed over the past few months.

Part of what has been helping the auto industry is its scaled-back production. Despite all the complaining about shortages of various parts, including chips, carmakers have kept their shareholders happy. They’ve been smart and uncharacteristically nimble about leveraging broader economic imbalances. Despite plant shutdowns, manufacturers across the globe posted blowout results in the first quarter. They've made fewer, arguably better, vehicles and have pushed margins higher.

But when carmakers start consistently talking about lower production, it should be a worrying sign. In the latest set of results, auto giants including the world’s largest, Toyota Motor Corp. and Ford Motor Co., said they will produce far fewer vehicles this year because of a worsening chip shortage. The shortfall alone is expected to result in almost 4 million fewer units, or 5% of estimated annual sales this year.

People who do not know how an economy works, just screwed up an economy for 12 months straight. It could take several years for the economy to return to normal without anymore of their bright ideas, but instead they're coming up with new harebrained schemes by the day. This is not going to end well for the American people. No matter what happens, inflation or deflation, it's going to be a very painful few years.